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The Friday Five, 10/27/17: 5 things I've been up to this week

I usually search through my Google Photos to try and remember what I've been up to every week, for these posts, but there aren't a lot to look through from this week. That means either my week hasn't been busy, which isn't the case here, or I just didn't take many photos.

I'm going to go with the latter. :)

The Half-Ass tribute at the Residential College (Univ. of Michigan) 50th anniversary weekend

What I've been up to this week:

Attending a reunion, of sorts. I graduated from the Residential College, part of LSA (College of Literature, Science, & the Arts) at the University of Michigan, in 2009. This weekend was the RC's 50th anniversary weekend, and I drove to Ann Arbor on Friday night to attend a tribute to The Half-Ass (real name: The Halfway Inn), which used to be a restaurant-type area where bands would also play, in East Quad, the dorm I lived in. UM got rid of the Half-Ass a few years ago when they renovated the dorm, so this was a tribute concert. After the concert, I went to Conor O'Neills downtown, with a friend, and we attended the Tom Petty tribute concert, which was also fun.

Speaking of the RC ... I received my copy of the first ever RC Alumni Journal in the mail on Wednesday. I majored in Creative Writing in the RC, and was asked to write a story to contribute to it. Since I mostly write blog posts and nonfiction (day job) things now, I had to dust off my creative writing skills a bit, but I was happy with the end result.

Celebrating Halloween, a little early. I went to a friend's Halloween party on Saturday night as Georgie from IT, and my boyfriend was Pennywise the clown—a weird couples costume, for sure, but I found an $8 raincoat online, and have been wearing that as my regular raincoat now too. (and have actually received quite a few compliments on it!)

Seeing theater, downtown. A friend and I went to the Fisher Theatre on Wednesday night to see Love Never Dies, which is the follow-up musical to Phantom of the Opera (one of my all-time favorite musicals, which I was able to see on my birthday this year at the Detroit Opera House). Andrew Lloyd Webber was in attendance too, and took a bow with the cast afterwards—pretty cool.

Attending Royal Oak Restaurant Week. Royal Oak is doing their restaurant week until this Sunday. On Monday night, a friend and I checked out Jolly Pumpkin for the first time—I've been to the Ann Arbor location but not this one, and they also have a Detroit location—and on Tuesday afternoon, some coworkers and I went to Ale Mary's for lunch. Overall I enjoyed the menu at Jolly Pumpkin more, but the salad and the "beeramisu" at Ale Mary's was also very good.

So we've all been there ... that time when you're on an important phone call, and then the call drops. Or even when you need to use the internet on your smartphone, only to realize that you're at your data limit for the month.

I drive all over the metro Detroit area for movie screenings; because of this, most of the time I know where I'm going, but sometimes, I'm in an unfamiliar area or at an unfamiliar theater and I need GPS to know how to get there and back.

A few months ago, I was headed to the AMC Forum (Sterling Heights area) and I wanted to know the best way to get home from there. My phone kept stalling ... and stalling ... and then the Maps app crashed! Gah! I was extremely frustrated. I was finally able to re-start the phone and get safely home, but it TOOK. SO. LONG. Had the Maps app worked the fir…

*Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own. As long-time readers of this blog surely know, I travel quite a lot. A few years ago, I only took about 2-3 trips per year, not including trips in the state of Michigan (Grand Haven weekends, etc.), but this past year, I was fortunate in that I was able to travel very frequently.

I recently heard about a new travel site, DirectHotels.com, which is similar to Kayak.com, in that it searches all of the other travel sites (Orbitz, Expedia, etc.) to find the best deals for you. I gave it a bit of a test run to see if that is indeed true.

About the site:
DirectHotels.com is a new hotel comparison tool that challenges the big brands. Travelers can easily compare all the travel sites in one place to find the cheapest hotel. DirectHotels.com compares over 200 bookings sites, so users can be sure about its accuracy. Using DirectHotels.com means that you will never overpay.

I've written these past two years about Bookstock, a huge used book & media sale that takes place at Laurel Park Place, in Livonia, and it's returning again this year, from Sunday, 4/22 through Sunday, 4/29.Read more about the event over at my book blog! I was finally able to check it out last year, and they had a large mix of books and media (including DVDs, Blu-rays, and records).To learn more about Bookstock, click hereto visit my book blog, or visit their official site here.